Occidental moves headquarters to Houston, plans to spin off California

In the new arrangement, Occidental will hold E&P operations in Texas, the Middle East and Colombia; a midstream and marketing segment; and Occidental’s chemical subsidiary, OxyChem.

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Occidental Petroleum is separating its California assets into
an independent publicly-traded company and moving its
headquarters to Houston, the company announced on Friday.

After the breakup, the remaining Occidental Petroleum will
relocate its headquarters from Los Angeles to Houston, where
it will be headed by current CEO Stephen Chazen through at
least 2016.

In the new arrangement, Occidental will hold exploration and
production operations in Texas, the Middle East and Colombia;
a midstream and marketing segment; and Occidentals
chemical subsidiary, OxyChem.

Creating two separate energy companies will result in
more focused businesses that will be competitive industry
leaders, CEO Stephen Chazen said

Occidental says the new California company, which has yet to
be named, would rank as the state's largest oil and natural
gas producers.

The new company will be at the forefront of efforts to
harvest the Monterey Shale, estimated by US energy officials
to hold as much as 15 billion bbl of oil, or two-thirds of
the nations potential shale-oil resources.

The company produces the equivalent of 154,000 bpd of oil and
natural gas in California and its operations there generated
revenue of $4.3 billion last year with $1.7 billion of
capital expenditure.

The California company could be worth as much as $19 billion
and carry as much as $5 billion of debt, according to
analysts.

Additional reporting from Bloomberg
News

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